


Among the Roses

by Vulpesmellifera



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Characters in Mourning, Ghost Captain Greg Lestrade, Ghost Sex, Growing Old, Haunting, I don't care how implausible functional umbrella-swords are, M/M, MCD tag is not for the ghost, Past Lives, Retirement, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sweet/Hot, Tenderness, True Love, this is fiction and we deserve umbrella-swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:54:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24954880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulpesmellifera/pseuds/Vulpesmellifera
Summary: The moon shone brightly on the garden, the colours of the roses now muted blue-greys like pebbles along the shore. A shiver ran down his spine as the hairs on his neck tingled.“Hello?” he said. Looked to the left and the right. Not a soul. “Who’s there?” His grip on the umbrella handle was clammy.A foghorn bellowed in the distance. Clouds crept over the moon’s face, casting long, gauzy shadows over the garden.Mycroft stepped back, and shut the door. He tried to quell the racing of his heart as he stood there, listening.“I’ve been waiting,” the man said, his voice as rough as waves hitting the rocks.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Comments: 168
Kudos: 210
Collections: Mystrade Is Magic





	1. Opening the Door

**Author's Note:**

> This story sprang from [this tweet](https://twitter.com/SketchesbyBoze/status/1266805332350849030?s=20) about a ghost captain who won't leave someone listening to their headphones alone. Silly? Maybe. Thanks to the Mystrade Reading Club for their clamoring of a Mystrade version. X-D
> 
> I could have gone in so many directions with this story, made it longer, more danger, more angst. But I had plans in the making already for other stories, so instead, I kept it as short and as sweet as I could. Obviously with the Major Character Death tag, this will have some sad. Overall it's a Mystrade ending, and our OTP is supremely happy. (Like, ecstatically, beyond the living world happy.)
> 
> Hippocrates460 is a gem to this fandom, for her amazing stories, and her tireless beta-ing. Thank you again, hippo!

When Mycroft first saw the two-story cottage, his breath faltered. Something inside his chest snapped into place, like a metal clasp, pieces coming together with a satisfactory _click._ The depth of that sensation was indescribable, much like the bluffs behind the cottage overlooking leagues of wide blue ocean. The wild tangle of roses in bloom around the building brought to mind a sunset: soft shades of pink, yellow, orange, and purple. Grey stone pavers led to the oak front door. It was like a scene from an unlikely regency novel - not that Mycroft would admit to having ever read such trite.

The drive had been abominable. The worst part had been the internet connection. “Blast it, you’ll have to create -”

“We’re here, sir,” Anthea had said, as the car slowed, rolling over the rocky lane to park next to a wooden rail fence overtaken by rose bramble.

The inheritance had been a surprise - he hadn’t even been aware that Rudy still owned property in England - and he’d told Anthea as much as they tried to salvage a day’s work with spotty reception on their mobiles. His skin crawled with the idea of leaving London to some backwater harbour town that relied on tourists for any income. He hated leaving London overall, but something about this particular trip irked him. With Uncle Rudy having been away on the continent, Mycroft expected to find the property in disrepair - not that his uncle wasn’t thoughtful about his things, but once he’d left England, he gave the impression that he was happy to leave everything behind, and “good riddance.” Mycroft’d probably need to do much work before it could even be sold. 

Unless the inside was anything like the outside.

“Is this a hobbit house?” he said, trying to pretend he was cross as they entered, him having to duck to avoid making contact with the lintel. A thatch-roofed cottage cosied in a nest of blooming rose bushes was not what he had expected. The will had only described it as a property in the tiny tourist town of Morewind with an ocean view. Anthea’s heels clicked along the wood flooring at a hesitant pace. 

He drew himself to his height, surprised by the spacious open floor plan between the kitchen and the lounge. His eyes followed the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling as they met with the white walls. An expansive stone fireplace at the center of the sitting room drew his attention, the mantle freckled with sea glass and shells. Rugs of nautical rope were strewn over a dark, hardwood floor that looked polished to a high shine. A photo of Rudy with his arm around another man hung from one wall over an antique rocking chair. The rest of the furniture was overstuffed brown leather partly covered by stylish, woven throws. Lamps and candles dotted the surfaces of shelves and tables; not a speck of dust as far as Mycroft could see. 

The kitchen had all new, shining stainless steel appliances, and a tile floor in dove grey. He almost expected to see frilly curtains, but everything was sleek and sheer, and the windows small. A door in the kitchen led to the back garden, where through the glass panes, he could see more roses. 

A second door seemed to beckon to him from the other side of the fireplace. He let himself through, noting that the doorknob was brass. The little room was a study, or library of sorts. Two overstuffed chairs framed a small fireplace made of brick. Bookshelves, brimming with a chaos of novels and encyclopedias, lined the walls. The sight pried a begrudging smile from Mycroft - Uncle Rudy had always loved a good story as much as he loved trivia. 

He walked out of the room to see Anthea had opened a third door: the bathroom. It held a laughable shower stall that would barely fit him. A toilet and sink, simple, made of porcelain, all modern plumbing. Anthea smirked at him, no doubt thinking the same thing about the tiny stall. 

The stairs creaked as they mounted them, ornate wall sconces illuminating the way. The first door opened to a large bedroom with a window facing the back - the view of the bluff edge and the ocean beyond. The room was again furnished in old furniture - a wardrobe, a bed, bedside tables, and a dresser. The floor was the same dark hardwood as downstairs, with a single, fluffy cream rug at the end of the bed.

“Another bedroom,” Anthea said from the doorway across the hall. Mycroft glanced over her shoulder. It was smaller with simpler furnishings. A single window facing the gardens. Uninteresting.

The last door at the end of the hall did interest him. It was a bathroom that held a monstrous clawfoot bathtub beside a picture window facing the ocean. The image of himself in this tub, warm water to the chest and gazing out onto that spectacular view, pushed its way into his thoughts. Unbothered by anyone. Not even Sherlock knew about this cottage.

That’s what did it. The thought of being here, unknown to anyone, alone, treasuring his solitude. Reading books in the library. Strolling through the garden. Preparing simple meals in the kitchen. Lounging by the fire, surrounded by the reviving scent of salty sea air. 

Anthea’s head was bent over her mobile. “Surprisingly good reception right here. Would you like me to put it on the market right away, sir?”

“No,” Mycroft said as a strange, warm sensation like a sluice of warm water moved through his chest. “I’m keeping it.”

* * *

Three weeks later, Mycroft parked in front of the cottage. Some light investigation found that a neighbour had been maintaining the property, and his daughter came once per week to clean the inside of the house. Mycroft arranged for their services to continue, though he made sure that they’d leave him alone on weekends. 

As he opened the car door and grabbed his things on the passenger side, he noticed that beneath the chaos of roses, colourful buoys hung from the rails of the fence. He’d barely noticed them before, but now, something about them said _home._

It didn’t take long for him to unpack. Groceries in the kitchen with some ready-made meals he’d had a chef prepare. Clothes in the master bedroom. Scotch and his laptop in the library. 

After a light dinner, he perused the bookshelves for new reading material. His gaze snagged on the spine of one book: _The Ghost Tales of Morewind._ Snorting, he pulled it from the shelf. It was a slender tome, obviously a small printer, likely from an author local to the area. A cheeky cash-in on the pirate theme the village perpetuated with period restaurants and chic boutiques selling pirate bandanas and items etched with skulls-and-crossbones. It was the exact sort of thing Uncle Rudy would enjoy, all gaudy pretense and the promise of carousing.

For no reason at all, Mycroft found himself settling into the overstuffed chair with the book - not for any real substance to absorb. No, it was to familiarize himself with the particular mythos of this village, since likely he’d have to visit at some point to make a grocery run or who knows what else. When Anthea and he had passed through it on the way here, the cartoonish signage and the tacky window displays left him with one impression: gauche. 

Of course, the first story was about a less-than-famous pirate ship that sank off the coast. A life size replica sat in the harbour of the town, with reenactors in ridiculous costumes singing sea shanties and telling tall tales with affected accents. The story claimed that on wet, foggy nights bearing a full moon, the ship could be seen to the west of the docks, and distant singing could be heard, slipping through the air like leaves whispering in the wind.

Mycroft heaved a sigh, sipped a bit of Talisker, and turned to the next page.

The second story took a turn for the tragic. Not far from where Mycroft now rested, a pair of star-crossed lovers flung themselves from the bluffs. Legend had it that around Valentine’s Day, you could hear their screams on the way down.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. Flipped the page. 

Just as he was about to read the next story, a loud knock came at the front door. 

Startled, Mycroft rose to his feet. He crossed the library and the lounge. No one but Anthea and the executor of his uncle’s will knew the location of this place. Standing before the door, he pulled his umbrella from the stand and slid the concealed sword from its sheath. Keeping it in one hand, he twisted the knob and swung open the door. 

The moon shone brightly on the garden, the colours of the roses now muted blue-greys like pebbles along the shore. A shiver ran down his spine as the hairs on his neck tingled. 

“Hello?” he said. Looked to the left and the right. Not a soul. “Who’s there?” His grip on the umbrella handle was clammy.

A foghorn bellowed in the distance. Clouds crept over the moon’s face, casting long, gauzy shadows over the garden.

Mycroft stepped back, and shut the door. He tried to quell the racing of his heart as he stood by the door, listening. 

That night before going to bed, he checked the locks on all the windows and doors. 

He dreamt of the knock. In his dream, he opened the door to find an unfairly beautiful man, eyes as dark as the fertile soil, a grin like a string of pearls. The stranger was dressed similarly to the reenactors from the ersatz pirate ship, or that kitsch pirate-themed restaurant on the main road. 

“Can I help you?” Mycroft asked, feeling unafraid. Something pinged in his gut - a sense of familiarity. Recognition. The tide pulled by the moon. 

“I’ve been waiting,” the man said, his voice as rough as waves hitting the rocks. 

Mycroft awoke, sweat cold on his shoulders. A sense of loss bloomed like tidal pools in his gut.

The cottage was quiet. Moonlight poured in through the window.

Mycroft was quite alone. And for just a moment, a lingering, yearning moment, he wished he wasn’t.


	2. Crossing the Threshold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being patient for the update. 
> 
> The playlist [on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5MfMcwCBv9oEMTcLk7W98V?si=nuqBenw7SZqSPyJpKjX-qQ) also includes a couple sea shanties!
> 
> Please heed the tags. A few of them have changed; new ones have been added. It is still very much a Mystrade ending where our OTP is supremely happy.

“I’ll have an electrician out as soon as I can, sir,” Anthea said. “Anything else?”

“No, thank you, my dear. Do enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Likewise, sir.” It gladdened him to hear a smile in her voice. He hung up.

It was his second weekend at the house. Lights flickered on and off at odd times and he’d had about enough. He’d also called for an exterminator to investigate the nature of the scrabbling and creaking that occurred on occasion. 

His phone call finished, he settled before the fire, his feet so close to the grate his toes almost burned with the heat. The night air was chilly, like the unearthly grasp of the dead.

_ Heavens, _ Mycroft thought,  _ this place is having an effect. _

He didn’t mind it too much. In his normal day-to-day life, he’d persecute himself mercilessly, stamp out any errant thoughts that didn’t fit into his approved mental framework. Here, though, among these vintage photos on the walls and the wood beams and the sturdy furniture, he could allow himself some whimsy. Here, it was safe.

Just as it was safe to pick up this cheap book on nautical ghost stories and indulge his more ridiculous, and secret, penchant for fanciful notions. 

The next story captured a smidge of his sympathy, a difficult task that was certainly aided by his consumption of alcohol. It was the tale of a sea captain who fell in love with one of the villagers. When the object of his love spurned him, the sea captain killed himself by jumping into the dark waters at midnight. 

“Poor sod,” Mycroft said, downing his third glass of Talisker. Though why anyone would kill themselves in the name of love was beyond him. He’d been careful to avoid it. Never understood it. Some part of him was curious about it, but no one had ever stirred the feeling in him. “Love,” he snorted, and shut the book. 

The brick fireplace, which had been dying out, flared to life with a sudden bonfire-like tenacity. The heat licked at his feet and Mycroft yanked back, the blood draining from his face as his empty glass rattled across the wooden floor. 

In almost the same instant, the flames went out. Embers glowed red-orange in the ash-dust dark. Odours of woodsmoke and sea salt hung in the air. 

Mycroft rose as he clutched the book to his chest, his heart pounding.

“Goodness,” he said.  _ Must have been quite an incendiary piece of tinder...fire is unpredictable. Yes, that’s it. Unpredictable. Even to Mycroft Holmes. _

With a steady hand, he placed the book on the chair and retrieved the fallen glass. He washed it in the sink before heading up the stairs to bed. As he drifted to sleep, a rough-tumble voice like the susurrus of distant ocean waves whispered in his ear.

The sky seemed vast and endless, an expanse of light blue over a midnight-dressed ocean scintillating in the sun. The rocky shoreline stretched on out of sight. Mycroft walked along it like a goat kid hopping from stone to stone. He was young again, lithe-limbed and pale creamy skin speckled with cinnamon brown spots. An errant curl brushed against his forehead. He pushed it back and tipped his chin upward, wishing for just a second he was Daedalus, and could lift a pair of wings and take off far from this little village that had been his home for most of his life.

Still looking up, he stepped forward, and his foot slipped. He stumbled to the ground, awkward as he was, still a gangly youth as spindly as a newborn foal at times. A bright hot pain blazed through his ankle. 

“Ouch!” he said as he clutched at it, pressing with his fingers to try and relieve the throbbing. 

“Oi, need help?” A man’s voice rose behind him.

His cheeks flamed as he turned to see the man - and oh, what a man. Broad shoulders, trim waist, and a handsome face with a set of ink-dark eyes that seemed to strip the clothes from Mycroft’s body in one glance.

Exposed, humiliated, Mycroft turned away. Touched his ankle again and flinched at the pain. 

“Let me help you,” the man said. The scramble of thick-soled boots on loose rocks approached him.

Mycroft bit his lip and faced him, resigned to living through this embarrassment. “I live on the bluffs. If perhaps you could take me to my home?”

“It would be my pleasure,” the man said. His hair reflected the sun like the good silver Mycroft’s mother kept in the cupboards. He was well-dressed: jacket, waistcoat, woolen trousers with a modern zipper. The style of his boots suggested he was a sailor, the shine of them that he was high ranking, and by the newness of his clothes, he was better paid than most sailors. When his arms wrapped around Mycroft and hefted him up, Mycroft was glad for the pain in his ankle, for it kept him from reacting to the proximity of a handsome man. He kept his chin lowered, so the stranger wouldn’t see the stain on his cheeks.

The dream collapsed into another scene. It seemed time had gone by. Mycroft stood before a window, and when he saw the sailor coming up the path, the percussive beat of his heart increased in tempo. Joy smashed through his chest as the silver-haired man caught his eye, and smiled. A glad smile intended only for him. The tips of his ears burned as he opened the door. 

“I’ll be out, Mother,” he called over his shoulder. 

The two men walked down the path toward the beach, their shoulders a mere hand’s length between them. 

Mycroft awoke, a gentle wave of happiness rippling through him. He lay there for a moment, thinking perhaps there was such a thing as alternate universes, and somewhere, some young happy version of him was walking side by side with a man who cherished him. 

As he rolled over onto his side, a shimmer on the floor drew his attention. He peered more closely

Footprints.

Water-logged footprints, as if someone had walked across the floor after leaving the bath, a dewy residue outlining every curve of every pad of toe, heel, and ball.

Cold shot through his stomach as his heart hit his throat. Slowly, he rose from his bed and faced the door. 

* * *

Mycroft followed the wet footsteps, taking with him a gun he kept in his bedside table. He kept his phone on emergency dial in the other hand. The prints hadn’t dried - whoever had left them came only recently.  _ Who the hell would come here and watch me while I sleep?  _ A madman? Some poor, homeless soul? Sherlock?

They led down the steps of the cottage and disappeared beneath the door to the library. Mycroft paused. Listened. Tried to slow his breathing. He strained to hear movement through the door. 

His brain, still half-muddled by sleep, narrowed his focus to one thing with a sudden exigency. 

Someone was on the other side of the door.

He placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly, smoothly. Pushed the door open -

To no one. Shelves still stuffed with books he had yet to read. Windows locked. Fireplace cold. The book he’d been reading, the one with ghastly tales of the harbour, lay on the chair. 

The hardwood flooring was dry, clear of any footprints.

Mycroft stepped into the room, gun raised, hand clutched around his phone. 

A book fell from one of the shelves. Dropped through the air like a stone and hit the floor with a loud  _ thwack. _

Mycroft jumped back, his heart beat trying to jack-rabbit right out of his chest and blood thundering in his ears. He looked behind him and back. No one was there. No one was in the room, but the book - a photo album - lay open on the floor, having apparently propelled itself from the shelf.

Stepping heel-toe, heel-toe, still straining to hear if anyone else was in the room, he approached the album. Nothing moved. No shadows flickered. No sounds like quiet breathing or steps anywhere else in the cottage. He kneeled to the floor and glanced at the photos.

A black and white photo took up an entire page in the landscape orientation. A smiling Rudyard Holmes, likely no more than age five, faced the camera. Behind him were his parents, Mycroft’s grandparents. His grandmother was dressed in white, with a fashionable hat on her head and a painted smile on her lips. His grandfather looked fetching in a three-piece Sunday suit. 

And off to the side of the photo, a young man, also in a suit. He bore some resemblance to the rest, pale skin and soft curls, but he didn’t look at the camera. He looked off to the side. Something about him pinged a sense of familiarity in the marrow of Mycroft’s ribs. He knew this man somehow.

_ Hm. A Holmes relative. Wonder if we have his photos among our own albums. _

Yet, for some reason, as he flipped through the pages of those albums in his own mind, he couldn’t remember having ever seen this young man among them.

He looked around the room. Still alone. Seemingly. He closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf. Moonlight fell through the windows like a layer of chalk dust in the air, muting the colour of anything illuminated by it. 

The footsteps still proved that someone was here. He walked to the doorway of the library and looked down. 

They were gone.

Walking quickly, he ran up the stairs and to his bedroom.

Not so much as a drop of water on the floor. Not the residual impression of a wet print anywhere along the hard wood.

Shaken, Mycroft dropped the gun on the table, sank to the bed, and clasped his phone to his chest.

* * *

He was in his bedroom this time, though it didn’t look the same. Smaller windows faced the rose garden. A single bed with an unfamiliar patch quilt. A little fireplace made of brick. 

A man sitting on the edge of the bed, their hands interlocked. His rough, callused fingers stroked along Mycroft’s slender, smooth ones.

“I know you have to go to London,” the silver-haired man said, his voice wonderfully rough. His dark eyes watched Mycroft with a deep sadness. “For a time. Your education.”

“You’ll go on your ship and leave me anyway,” he said. Or rather, the person he inhabited, said.

“I will go one last time, and when I have the money, I’ll take you away from here.”

“But here is your home.”

“Yes, but I’d go anywhere to have the chance to be with you. They are rather more liberal in Paris, for instance.”

Mycroft smiled. “What if…” His mind clouded with dark, poisonous thoughts. How this handsome man of experience could be just as in love with Mycroft, as Mycroft was in love with him. “I can’t help but feel our acquaintance is doomed.”

The other man smiled. “Nay, my love. Our love is of the true kind, and defeats even Death itself.”

Mycroft raised the handsome man’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “I want to believe you.”

“I’ll prove it to you.”

The room began to fade. Mycroft squeezed the man’s hand. “Wait -”

“I’ll be there when you wake up. Don’t worry. I’m here, beside you.”

Mycroft awoke in his own bedroom, his hand still reaching into nothing but air.

His eyes stung. He touched his face, amazed to find tears clinging to his cheeks. “Greg -” he said.

_ Greg? Who on earth is Greg? _

Wait. 

That book. Captain Gregory Lestrade was the sea captain who killed himself when his lover spurned him.

Mycroft flopped back on the pillows, his heart pinched with humiliation and his arm thrown over his eyes.  _ Good Lord. I’ve been dreaming about a dead sea captain that belongs in a horrid romance novel. _

God, the longing and the crushing sense of love that he had dreamed he possessed. The Greg Lestrade of his dreams had a captivating beauty, a masculine resplendence that pushed all of Mycroft’s buttons. If only…

If only.

_ This is why you don’t get involved. Love is the result of a chemical cocktail. Lust is at least straightforward, but Love is a trickster. _

Still. In some buried niche of his heart, Mycroft could admit that it was nice to be looked at the way Greg Lestrade had looked at him. It was nice to be loved, as desperate as the longing in his chest made him.

_ True love. Bah. _

It was time for him to get back to London for his workweek. 

* * *

No dreams enchanted him while he was in London. No spectral footprints. No hints at eidolons or poltergeists or unexpected intruders. No whispers, no sensation of anyone touching his hair or playing with light switches.

A sense that when everyone left the room, he was truly alone. He hadn’t realized that while he was staying in the cottage, a presence existed in the rooms with him. Missing now in his London flat.

On Friday, he left work early. He could feel Anthea’s eyes on him, though she said nothing.

As he approached the cottage, he thought again of his dreams, of the watery footprints. Likely, he was experiencing some kind of neurological disorder, and if he was, he needed to know. England depended on him.

Outside the door, he stood with a weighted sense of trepidation. Yet, when he opened the door, a wave of peace flooded him, tucked itself into the nooks of his body, laying a balm of contentment over his once-hardened heart. He was home.

It was a strange sensation that should have alarmed him, and yet, all he could muster up was a strong sense of relief. He felt...safe.

He turned on the record player. The light piano notes of Kathryn Stott were joined by the moving strains of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello, in a gorgeous, soft rendition of  _ Ave Maria. _ As he unpacked his things, he found himself swaying to the music as the songs changed, all wildly emotional, some sort of... _ romantic. _ It was an album he rarely played. Anthea had purchased it for him when she discovered he was a fan of Yo-Yo Ma. He’d thanked her and placed it at the end of his vinyl collection. Yet, for this weekend, he was possessed to grab it and bring it with him. No harm in a little sentimental indulgence, he reasoned. 

When he’d finished setting up the bedroom and the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water and walked out into the garden. He’d yet to see over the edge of the bluff, and he was sure the view, though precarious, must be breathtaking. 

The roses blasted the air with their floral redolence, joined by the smell of the sea. As he stepped along he missed the lift of one of the flagstones. It caught the edge of his shoe and he stumbled, letting the glass slip from his hands and shatter across the stone. He’d almost followed it to the ground, except hands pulled him back. Righted him. The press of fingers lingered on his right arm, over the bicep and beneath the shoulder.

He whirled around to see no one there. Glass crunched beneath the soles of his shoes. His ears still rang with its breaking.

Mycroft glanced from side to side. The road couldn’t be seen from here. The flagstone pathway wound about the rose bushes and in the direction of the bluff. Shaken, but determined, he stepped over the glass and continued on his way. The sensation of the hands having touched him slipped away, but he still didn’t feel alone. If whatever it was hadn’t let him fall on broken glass on the flagstone, it wasn’t likely to shove him over the bluff. And he wanted to observe the phenomena - if he headed too close to the edge, would something unseen stop him? 

The route was maybe 200 meters from his garden, covered in long, brilliant green sedge. He stopped about a meter from the cliff’s edge.

The sun was setting, casting a fiery orange across the water. Pinks and violets massed in the sky. The blue of night was setting its veil over them like a soft curtain. With the whimsy of the music behind him - not loud enough for him to hear, but nonetheless playing in his ears - and the profound beauty of the vista before him, for just a moment, he wished he wasn’t alone - with himself or with whatever invisible force was hanging around this cottage. That he could share this beautiful moment with someone. 

A light weight settled upon his shoulders. The breeze lifted and his hair rose with it, losing the stiffness from his hair product. It was cold as it nipped through his jacket and shirt, but where the strange weight perched was only warmth.

He couldn’t bring himself to fear it.


	3. A Confrontation

He made himself a simple salad for dinner, and placed some cold grilled chicken on top. Silence, but for the sound of clinking cutlery, filled the cottage. Candles were lit at the small table. He poured himself a glass of red wine and sat at his meal. Alone. 

Or, perhaps not.

He sipped his wine and wondered at his predicament. In London, he was resolute in his solitude, aside from Anthea. His mind functioned like a well-oiled set of cogs, his recall was astonishing, and his ability to problem solve unlike any other. He was the smartest man in London, and that wasn’t being a braggart - it was the simple truth. 

If these were truly hallucinations or some other ailment of the mind, why would it only occur within this one place? He didn’t experience a shortness of breath or anything else that might indicate carbon monoxide poison. Running through his symptoms and placing them against his vast knowledge, he didn’t find anything that quite fit. A noxious gas? Perhaps he might inquire with the groundskeeper, or the housekeeper. See if they ever experienced symptoms...of what exactly? A helpful ghost? Happiness? A warm wash of contentment? Dreams of being in love with a gorgeous man?

Preposterous.

A small disquiet coiled in his chest. Upon investigation, he could only feel it was his burgeoning longing to remain seaside.

Here he was, having odd dreams and experiencing strange - if frightening - happenings in this little cottage. He’d never given much thought to the existence of spirits - it wasn’t something he’d ever been faced with and he was certainly not going to consider it without empirical evidence of some kind. Yet, was this truly evidence or was he mad?

He finished his glass of wine and his meal. As he cleaned up, he had the sensation of being watched. It should have unnerved him, but instead he felt...assured. Accompanied. 

“Hm,” he said. “Seems unfair that you should get to watch me, and not I you.”

_ Click. _

The sound was familiar. The sound of the record player needle hitting a record. 

Cello notes slid into the air like light across shadows. It was  _ Salut d’Amour,  _ by Edward Elgar, as played by Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott. 

Fear shot through him and erupted from his lips in a gasp. The record was spinning. The lovely playing of piano and cello twined through the air in a delicate, happy melody. 

His first impulse was to run out the door.

Instead, he walked quietly to the record player, pressed the stop button, and returned the needle to its rest. He slid the album back into its cover. “That’s quite enough for tonight,” he said, and was surprised by the steadiness of his voice. 

As soft as the breeze moving through the leaves, a voice said, “I don’t mean to frighten you.” 

Mycroft jumped, dropping the album to the floor. “Who’s there? Show yourself!” Now his voice quavered as a cold jitteriness curled and tossed through his gut down to his knees. “Now.”

No answer.

“Well?” His voice was high. He took a step forward and glanced up the stairs, straining to hear. 

“You can’t see me,” the voice, a gentle, soft voice with a slight huskiness to it, seemed to want to comfort him. “But I can see you. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Fear spiked up his spine. A bodiless voice proved too much as Mycroft bolted through the front door, the soles of his shoes slapping against the stone pavers. He threw open the car door, slid into the driver’s seat, fished his keys from his pocket, and before he knew it, he was in the lane and speeding down to the village. 

He found a corner pub with lights on that didn’t seem too busy. Once inside, he tried to focus. Did he need to make an appointment with a psychiatrist? Should he go back to London? Was it worth it to gather his things from the cottage?

Was he overreacting? Nothing had tried to harm him.

With no immediate decision in sight, he looked about the pub. The place had the usual ship theme, though they leaned more towards the fishing history of the town rather than pirates, which was somewhat reassuring. A man with a handsome, weathered face tended the bar. Patrons sat at circular tables, and a couple sat belly up to the bar. Mycroft slid onto a stool at the very end of the bar. 

“Scotch, please. Your finest,” he said to the bartender when asked for his order.

A moment later, the glass was set down in front of him. 

“What’s the matter, man? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the man said. 

“Ha,” Mycroft barked. “You might say that.”

“Well, let me know if you’ll be needing anythin’ else.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said.

He let his mind go for a moment, let his eyes peruse the photos along the rough timber wall. Framed black and whites, sepia toned, pics of very fine men in their dress, some in old newspaper photos, others simple paintings. One of them caught his eye.

_ No. _

A sketch. A man with a fine chin and evenly set, dark eyes. A slight smile on his lips and a glint in his gaze. 

The man from his dreams.

Mycroft knew his mouth had fallen open. Self-conscious, he closed it, then rubbed his chin, scrubbed his hand over his face, and looked at the picture again. It was definitely him, with that magnificent jaw and those fine shoulders. Mycroft could imagine the hushed gravelly, quality of voice in his ears. The way he’d looked at Mycroft in his dreams. Held his hand. It all seemed so real.

And this warmth in his chest, curling through him, winding through him, like light reflected in a tunnel of mirrors. It was...fondness for this phantom. When he dreamt, the man was like the sun to him, and he a sunflower: he followed him everywhere with his gaze. Loved him.

_ Loved him. _

Mycroft tried to muster up a scoff, but the best he could do was a wrinkle of his brow. 

“You’ve got that look again, mate,” the bartender said.

“Who - who is the man there, in the drawing, third frame from the left?”

“Oh, good looking fellow, ain’t he? That’s Captain Gregory Lestrade. My grandfather knew him. Said he was a good man.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, said he never saw what happened to him coming. Said it wasn’t like the fellow. You’ve heard of the Captain what killed himself at the bluffs here? That’s him.”

“The one who jumped?”

“Yeah, up on the Holmes property.” The bartender paused. “You’re the new Holmes fellow, ain’t you?”

Mycroft lowered his face to his glass. “I suppose I am.”

“Aye, glad to meet you. They call me Therault. Proprietor here. Inherited this place from my da.”

“You say your grandfather knew the captain?” Mycroft hoped his face didn’t appear as pale as he felt it must be. 

“He did. I suppose you know the tale?”

“I read a book.”

“Oh, lots of self-styled authors here. They go around collecting bits from notes and old-timers and publish rot.”

“What’s your version of the story?”

“He didn’t kill himself.” Mr Therault leaned forward. “He was murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“Aye. For loving a man.”

Mycroft blanched.

“Now, it wasn’t like that. Someone didn’t kill him on the account of him being oriented to men, but it was his choice of man what got him killed.”

“Right,” Mycroft said, his stomach flipping about like a fish suffocating on land. “Who - who was this man?”

“Mm. Grandda never said. Just said that someone else wanted him, and so the sea captain was killed by him.”

“Him?”

“Yeah. Grandda said the other man was a rich bloke, someone who came to town often. Set his sights on the captain’s lover. Was determined to win him over. Got the captain out of the scene.”

“Barbaric,” Mycroft said. Suddenly, his heart hurt. The man in his dreams. The voice in his house. The bluff where it was said Greg Lestrade threw himself was mere yards from his garden.

“Aye, won’t argue with you there. I asked Grandda why he remembered this one tragedy so well - turns out that he and the captain were good friends. And Grandda said that Captain Lestrade would have never offed himself, but Grandda couldn’t prove it otherwise.”

“And...the lover?”

“The young man moved to London. Never heard of him again.”

Mycroft recalled his dream.  _ You’ll go to London. _

The sense of doom that pervaded the young man sitting on the bed. 

The sad face of the captain. Hopeful by the end of their conversation, as he spoke of moving them to Paris.

The sense of loss as the dream faded away.

That’s when it struck him. When, however impossible it seemed, some pieces snapped into place.

“I need to go,” he said.

The bartender’s eyebrows slid to his hairline.

“Here.” Mycroft plunked cash on the bar. “Thank you.”

* * *

Mycroft approached the cottage with a nerve-jangling sense of trepidation. It looked the same as when he left it - half-tidied rose bushes and the door ajar. 

He crossed the threshold. Cast his eyes over the room. The same beautiful old wood and spare furnishings. He headed for the library. 

The photo album was on the floor again, flipped open to the same page as before. As if something in the cottage knew his aim.

A smiling young Rudyard Holmes and his parents. The unknown man to the side with the sadness on his face. Haunted, Mycroft would say. He traced a single finger over the image. Same nose as Mycroft, the one that had skipped a generation. Definitely a Holmes. 

Mycroft went to shut the book when something slid from its pages and hit the ground with the sound of falling leaves. An envelope, worn but not ancient. He scooped it up. Inside were folded notes on thin paper with a faded ink. Not so faded that it couldn’t be read.

On his knees, he began to read. 

_ My Dear M, _

_ I write these notes to try and alleviate my longing for you during this time we are at a distance. I pray you’ll humour me for the indelicate words I may pen here. That night among the roses is one of my happiest memories, for the honeyed phrases which dripped from your mouth have made me happier than a fish at sea, and when I think of the blush upon your cheeks… _

_ One of the things I miss is our long walks on the shore. There is no one here that I can spend such long hours with, talking of everything under the sun. _

_ Know that my thoughts are of only you and one day we shall be happy together in Paris, as we said. _

_ True Love is the strongest power on Earth. Believe it. _

_ Your Beloved, _

_ G. _

  
  


_ My Dear M, _

_ This time away from you has soured my mood it seems. It is unbearable some nights to think of you alone in your bed as I am alone in mine. That we should be parted for so long. That I am unable to speak of you to anyone. I keep looking to your direction, knowing you wait for me. Please wait for me, just a little longer. I’ll send this letter at the next port. Know I think of you always.  _

_ Your Beloved, _

_ G. _

  
  


And finally, the last note:

_ My Dear M, _

_ Joy ripples outward from my heart as we point this ship homeward. We will stop at the Port de Dives-sur-mer, where I shall send you this letter with my love. I may make it home before it does, but if I do not, know to prepare for my arrival, and for our subsequent union. I have wealth enough to bring us both to Paris, and we shall live out the rest of our days in a happy matrimony that no governing body nor church shall touch. It is ours, and ours alone. I have thought of you, and only you, with your freckles and your curls and your sea-blue eyes. I know in my heart that you must have thought of me, for never were two people more suited to one another, don’t you agree, my love? I hope you agree, and have waited for me, for I would wait for you all my life and then beyond.  _

_ Your Beloved, _

_ G. _

  
  


When Mycroft finished reading the last letter, he was shocked by the tears in his eyes. A sense of longing bloomed inside his chest, though he couldn’t know when the seed was planted. The emotions that ran through him were new and confusing, and perhaps, belonged to him at the same time as not belonging to him. A distinct sadness that threatened to crush his lungs beneath its weight. An acute  _ pining _ that twined its way between his vertebrae and settled in his ribcage. Already on his knees, he sank further to the floor. His dreams, those blurry images that passed through his mind, it was like trying to remember something from too long ago - and he remembered his childhood well. These images were older than that. 

“It’s someone else,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” a voice whispered.

Mycroft jumped up, dropping the photo album to the floor in a loud  _ thwack _ . 

The room was empty, again, aside from him. Moonlight spilled through the small windows.

“No,” Mycroft said. “Not me.” He marched out of the room.

  
  



	4. Crumbling Defenses

He stepped into the kitchen. Stared out the little window onto the roses. 

If there was a way to contact Rudy and ask him about the man in the photo, who now Mycroft assumed was “M,” he would have. As it was, Rudy was dead. 

Mycroft still held the photo album. Rudy’s little brother was alive, though. He called his father. 

“Father,” he said.

“Mycroft. How are you?”

“I’m well,” Mycroft lied.

“How’s the cottage?”

“Fine. I’ve come across some old photo albums.” He turned pages, and found photos of his father as a baby. Including one of Rudy holding him in his lap. The young man didn’t appear again. 

“Oh? What have you found?”

“Pictures of your infanthood. Rudy as a child. Some other relatives, I think. Was there ever a young man who stayed with Grandfather and Grandmother at the cottage?”

“I can’t be certain, you know that was a very long time ago. Your grandparents only used that cottage for part of the summers. Mostly they stayed at the one in Sussex.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, not knowing what else to say. It was before his father’s time, anyway. “I think the man I was thinking of moved to London anyway.”

“Are you speaking of Morris? Good Lord, I had a hard time finding good photos of that man back when we were doing the family tree.”

“Morris?”

“Yes, my uncle. Morrissey Holmes. Your Grandfather’s brother. He grew up at that cottage, aside from his years at Eton. My father was married and living in London, but when my grandparents died, he inherited everything. They left a trust for Morris, I think. To finish out Cambridge, which he did.”

It fell into place for Mycroft then. The family tree he’d once glanced over, its branches etched in his memory, but at the end of one with the blurriest of photos of a man, was named Morrissey Holmes. 

His father was still talking. “Uncle Morris was...rarely spoken of in the family. My father wouldn’t speak of him, anyway. Seems they had a falling out some years before. My other aunts and uncles rarely spoke of him. Think he died of tuberculosis, rather young, if I recall. But they said little of his life, except he went to live in London.”

“Did Rudy ever talk of him?”

“He didn’t really remember him. He was under the impression that there was a scandal within the family, and not a soul breathed a word of it.”

Mycroft frowned. It seemed unlike Rudy to have left a secret like that undiscovered. But perhaps he had taken the answers to the grave. 

Perhaps, though, Mycroft had his own way of discovering answers.

“Thank you, Father. Tell Mummy hello for me. I must go.” 

* * *

Mycroft wasn’t sure how to summon a dream. They were sporadic. He thought about it. Wished for it. Willed it to happen. Then he drank some scotch.

When he was under the covers, he glanced nervously about. No voices had whispered to him since that afternoon. The record player had stayed silent. Nothing had touched him. Yet, something about the cottage seemed very much alive and interested in what he was doing. As if it was biding its time. Waiting. Watching. Hoping.

Instead of unnerving him, it brought comfort. Mycroft Holmes, who had never needed anyone to care for him, was bending his will to the whims of a phantasmic presence. As if it was what he’d been waiting for all his life. And to think, he had tried to leave London as little as possible. All this time, afraid of something outside the city. 

He couldn’t deny a link between him and Morrissey Holmes. Which seemed improbable, but he couldn’t say impossible. He was no expert on death and the afterlife, for all his intelligence. 

_ You still might be crazy. _

_ Then I’ll make an appointment with a psychiatrist. _

With that thought, Mycroft closed his eyes, and drifted off to a deep slumber.

He stood by the window, looking out onto the rose garden and the moonlit cliff beyond. A single candle burned on the table. His brother, sister-in-law, and nephew were all asleep upstairs. His heartbeat and his breathing seemed too loud in the quiet of the kitchen. The air was cold, the kind that sets in the bones and makes its home there. He shivered, and turned his eyes to the cliff once more. 

He waited for his captain. The candle burned and the wax melted. The shadows of the kitchen grew taller as the candle shrunk. His heart grew heavier. The valise at his feet looked impossible to carry. The dark night sky had faded to a dawn grey by the time the flame went out. 

When Mycroft awoke, his face was wet.

He knew, he  _ knew _ , the presence was there - at his bedside. He could feel it - it was almost like if he put his fingers out to touch, he could leave an impression there, hanging in the air.

“I waited for you all night,” he said, a little bitter in his sadness. “Over, and over, and over.”

“I know you must have,” the voice said. “Forgive me.”

Images filter through Mycroft’s mind. It’s as if there’d been a secret door all along, and now that it’s open, he’s roaming a new wing of memories, all belonging to Morrissey Holmes.

Except, somehow, he’s also Morrissey Holmes, who waited seven nights in a row for someone who never came.

Impossible. _ No, improbable. _

“What - what happened? Why didn’t you come?”

Something almost like a sigh whispered through the air.

“And why does the book say you threw yourself from the bluff?”

“I didn’t throw myself. You’ll recall Theodore Morgan.” 

The image of a tall, broad-shouldered man with his hair impeccably coiffed, a sharp look to his eyes, a grating tone in his voice. Disgust and fear raked across Mycroft’s chest. This man had tried to put his hands on a young Morrissey Holmes when he first ventured to London. It was under the guise of taking the youth under his wing. Mycroft - Morrissey - got away, and soon after was deemed  _ persona non grata _ as abominable gossip reached the eaves of his family’s houses - gossip no doubt circulated by a vengeful Theodore Morgan. 

“I was on my way to your door. He was walking by. Couldn’t sleep, he said. He asked me to walk with him and we went out to the bluff outside your garden.” A pause. Mycroft senses a distinct pressure beside him on the bed, as if Greg might be sitting  _ right there. _ “I should have known, my love. He did have his eye on you, but I didn’t think he’d have it in him to murder the rival for your affections.”

Black anger came billowing up inside of him like smoke from a wildfire. The villain had treated him to the opera and dining. Tried to press his unwanted affection upon him. Took advantage of a small rift with his elder brother, and succeeded in ostracising Morrissey from his family. And then he got sick. No one visited him. Not family. No one. 

Mycroft wrapped his arms around him. Even as a child, he had this inexplicable anger. This resentment toward his family, and he’d gone all his life trying to prove he was his own island. His own man. That he needed no one beyond their practical use for him. 

He had died. Alone. In a rented room in a shabby part of London. 

He swiped the tears from his face, balled his hand into a fist. 

“I am so terribly sorry. But give thought to this; I wrote to you and said I would wait for you for all my life and beyond. Here I am.”

“You linger here as a spirit, while I am flesh and blood.” Mycroft never rued his transport more than he did in that moment. He was corporeal; no matter how much he preferred to think of his brain as a computer and his body the shell that contained it, he was human and alive. And now, now when he was ready, perhaps, to accept that he experienced needs and desires, and could love another - for Morrissey had loved so desperately and so ardently - it didn’t matter. His beloved was a ghost.

Picking now through his feelings was like picking one’s way through a bramble patch. Mycroft had never been interested in conducting a relationship with anyone. It wasn’t exactly that he was adverse to the idea, so much that it had never appealed to him. 

Now, though, now...the soft suggestion of kisses upon his neck, the warm feeling like a hook in his chest, the shadow of a smile across his dream lover’s face...he wanted more. More of that, and it was insane, how turned around he was by this visitation. By this specter who haunted this cottage and his dreams. He wanted to feel a kiss on his lips. Without thinking, he touched his fingertips to his lips and shocked himself with a zipping sensation that reached his cock. 

That was the other issue with relationships. Sex scrambled your thinking processes. Nothing came of allowing your cock to make decisions for you. 

Yet, this wasn’t anything so paltry or base. The longing he felt was real - painfully, sweetly real. While it seemed his dormant sexuality had awakened, what he wanted most was to be held, to be cared for. To have a partner who would stand by him through life. Someone to come home to.

Except this someone was...dead.

Maybe it was time to call that psychiatrist. 

Yet when he opened himself to the parts of him he identified as Morrissey - as difficult as that was, since Morrissey was him and he was Morrissey - the love for Captain Greg Lestrade seemed pure. Desperate yes, twisted by grief. And some part of him was elated, somehow tremendously happy that he was reunited with his lost love, no matter how incorporeal he was. 

It was...to say the least, a lot. 

And now Mycroft couldn’t cleave their hearts: he was in love with a dead man.

“How would this work?” He tunneled his fingers through his hair. Morrissey kept all his until he died. He was young when he died though, no more than twenty-four. And how could he leave the cottage now when he’d found the object he didn’t even know he’d been searching for for all of his life? 

“I am only happy to see you once again. I did say true love succeeds, even over death.”

Mycroft smiled as he thought of the captain, dressed in brown boots and his best clothes, having come to see Morrissey one day. His brother thought their friendly acquaintance was all that there was, two men finding camaraderie in walks along the beach and shared books. His sister-in-law, though, looked at them a bit too sharply. They’d take their conversations far from the house, and concealed from others, shared kisses and whispered promises. Their courtship had been fast, full of hooded glances and happy smiles. When Greg had left on a long journey, and Mycroft read his letters - as Morrissey - he knew then that Greg was true. An honorable man. The man he loved. He swore he would never love another.

And he had kept by that pledge, even now, in this life.

“I - I just don’t understand how this is happening.”

“Must we understand it?” The voice moved closer to his ear. “I have waited so long for you.”

Mycroft’s defenses crumbled. His every molecule cried out for reunion with this ghost, this eidolon, this presence from the past. He turned toward the voice. “I didn’t realize I was waiting for you, but now I know that I have.”

It was the slightest of sensations, a slide of some pressure upon his lips. He gasped. Fingers pressed against his jaw, and the pressure of another mouth was upon his again. His lips tingled. A pool of molten warmth gathered in his groin. Shivers traveled down his spine as the fingers traced his jaw line to his neck. 

“Be mine, again,” Greg murmured against his lips.

“I have always been yours,” Mycroft said. 

The exquisite sensation of kissing went on over the next hour, as Mycroft gave himself over to his unlikely lover and stretched out onto his bed, the mattress dipping beside him. 


	5. In His Lover's Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in posting. A tropical storm prevented me from posting ghost sex - the nerve, right?
> 
> (Also I checked with a doctor - thanks ewebie! - and ectoplasm counts as a water-proof lubricant.)

Milky light poured through the sheers and reflected around the room with the bright announcement of dawn. Mycroft shifted beneath the weight of his covers as the memories of the night before arose in his mind. He could feel himself flushing as he thought of gentle touches on his skin and sweet, whispered words of devotion in his ear. 

Greg.  _ His Greg. _

God, when he had been a youth, in both this lifetime and the last, he’d been so bookish and awkward he’d thought no one would ever love him. It had taken one afternoon with a handsome sailor to change his mind, to show him that perhaps he could be worthy of someone.

He could remember his disbelief - the idea that an experienced man such as Greg, a man as handsome as Greg, could find himself drawn to the diffident Morrissey. But as he visited during his convalescence, the mutual attraction couldn’t be denied. Greg had read to him, and Morrissey had listened, held rapt by the throaty bass of the captain’s voice. They’d argued the day’s politics - the social inequalities and oppression of the poor, the rights of the working man, the lack of equality for women of any class. Greg regaled him with sea shanties and bawdy tales that stained his cheeks. Mycroft had told him fairytales from around the world, and different philosophical ideas on the meaning, or lack of meaning, of life. Greg listened, asked questions, and marveled at the extent of Mycroft’s recall. 

This deluge of new memories in his mind were welcome. A balm against his lifetime of loneliness - he was lonely no more.

“Greg?” he called.

“Mycroft?”

The name sounded unusual in Greg’s voice. As if he were trying it out. 

“Am I alright to call you Mycroft?”

Mycroft smiled. “I think so.” He rubbed his forehead, trying to smooth out the wrinkle in his brow that had formed from a lifetime of worrying. “I am… still processing what has happened. Recognising my old self, savouring memories of you in another time.” He looked around the room. This has been his brother’s room, with his wife. Mycroft had slept downstairs, in what was now his library. “No wonder that it felt like home, when I arrived here. It’s where I fell in love with you.”

A rush of air, like a sigh.

“And we’re together now,” Mycroft said. “Oh, but Greg, how you must have suffered all these years, never knowing if I’d ever show up.”

“Nay, love. I had faith you’d be mine again.”

“How could you be so certain?”

“When you left for London, do you remember what you said to me, out by the roses?”

Mycroft sat up straight. The night before young Morrissey had made his trip to London, he’d walked out into the garden and watched the sun set one last time. 

“You felt me there, then, I think.”

Mycroft remembered: the dwindling light was a wash of gold over the bluff’s edge. The breeze carried the scent of brine and sand. 

A warmth around his shoulders. 

He’d said to the breeze, to the weight by his neck, “I’ll come back for you. One day, my captain. I will come back for you.”

Mycroft shivered as the memory filled him. He’d known it then. He’d felt it. Their story was not at an end. And though he died alone in that little flat in London, he’d thought himself fortunate: he was going to the arms of his lover. 

He’d taken a detour along the way, but here he was. 

Greg’s unseen arms slid around him as if on cue. 

The arms of his lover. 

* * *

Water steamed into the air as Mycroft turned the tap to off. A nervous energy wobbled through him. Wrapped in a soft robe, alone with a hot bath looking over the expanse of roses adjacent to the cliff where Greg lost his life, he was determined to not waste any more time. Greg had been gentle with him, kissing, petting, but going no further the night before. Mycroft now had the energetic impatience of Morrissey, who’d been eager to bed the captain.

Mycroft could admit he was eager, too.

To settle his nerves, he’d decided to take a bath. Now, though, he regretted it. Regretted leaving the comfort of that bed and the presence of a man he loved. A man who he could feel touching him. 

It was insane. It was what it was.

With his dressing gown still tied tight, he called out, “Greg?”

“Yes?” The voice sounded from the other side of the door.

Nerves skittered below his skin. He held tight to one wrist.  _ You are a grown man.  _

_ Just do it.  _ “Would you...join me? I believe the bathtub is big enough for two,” he chuckled a little nervously at the end. 

“Yes.” He could feel and hear Greg beside him.

Mycroft jumped. “Good Lord, Greg! I -”

“Apologies,” Greg said with a chuckle. “I can leave -” 

“No,” Mycroft said. “Stay. I - I want this. With you.” With nervous fingers, he undid the

belt of his robe. He stopped when he felt the pressure of Greg’s hands close over his. 

“Allow me,” Greg said softly by his ear.

Mycroft watched as the belt came undone. He closed his eyes when hands stroked up his bare chest and over his shoulders, pushing the robe off and letting it spill to his feet. With his eyes shut, he could see Greg with his silver-grey hair and his twinkling eyes. That broad chest and trim waist. Narrow hips and muscled legs. As Morrissey, he had catalogued all of these things. As Mycroft, he would get to experience them.

“Into the bath, love.” 

Mycroft opened his eyes. He slipped one foot, and then the next into the tub, the water lapping gently against the porcelain sides. 

“Lay back,” Greg instructed. 

Despite the length of his lanky frame, he fit inside the tub, his bent knees above the water like twin islands, his shoulders submerged in the warmth. 

“Close your eyes, feel me touch you,” Greg said.

He did as he was told, lying his head back. Fingers touched his lips, brushed along his jaw, and down his neck. A second hand lay on his left knee.

The fingers on his neck moved in tiny circles on the sensitive skin behind and below his left ear, then crossed over to do the same on his right. Mycroft sighed, a long, contented sigh. No one had ever touched him like this before. 

“Tell me about your life, now. What is it that you do?”

“I serve in Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” Mycroft admitted, though the lie about being a civil servant had lain on his tongue. 

“Hm, that is exactly something my Morrissey would have aspired to.”

Mycroft frowned. “I know I am him, but I’m also more.”

The fingers on his neck continue with their gentle touches. “Am I...less now?”

“No.” Mycroft’s heart squeezed. “Lord, no. Unexpected. I am, however, becoming more and more glad that I have found you.”

“It must be confusing.”

“How - how did you know that I am he?” The fingers brushing along his neck were becoming distracting. Thrilling. 

“When I first saw you, I knew. Things aren’t the same from this side. You see...the truth of everything. Physical qualities don’t have as much importance.” The press of lips against the shell of Mycroft’s ear. “I can touch things, when I want to. Around you, I am strengthened. Never has that happened before.”

Mycroft bit his lip. “I wish I could see you.”

“Keep your eyes closed and picture me, while I touch you.”

A hand stroked his knee while the one upon his neck smoothed over his chest, dipping below the bath water. Stiffness slid from Mycroft’s muscles like his dressing gown had slid to the floor. Languid, soft touches and smooth strokes. The hand on his knee slipped down his shin and wrapped around his calf. Greg’s other hand rubbed Mycroft’s chest and his ribs, over his sternum, and around his nipples. They peaked. His cock stirred. Despite the fact that he’d never been in such a position with any other person, he felt no embarrassment. Only that he was safe. Loved. A tinge of fear swirled in his chest for a second at the foreign feeling, but Greg seemed to soothe it, tame it, invite it into his lap and cuddle it as if it were once a feral kitten and now a trained house cat. 

Mycroft was seemingly no match.

“I waited for you for so long,” Greg whispered.

“Did you - you did not, cross over then? Are there others like yourself?” 

“I don’t know what else there is. But I waited. Somehow, I knew, somewhere in my heart, I knew, that I’d see you again.”

“And so here we are.”

“Yes.” His hand traveled lower, across Mycroft’s belly, avoiding his interested penis. “M,” saying it like  _ Em, _ “I’d like to touch you.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said. “Yes,  _ please. _ I waited so long for you. I would have no one but you.”

“And I you, my love.” Another press of lips against his temple. Mycroft kept his eyes closed so he could picture Greg’s sure hand clasping his cock. A trail of kisses feathered along his neck. Mycroft bit back a moan. 

Memories of the way Greg used to watch him while they walked flooded his mind. The flame had burned hot between them, but Greg treated him like a gentleman, with the occasional cheeky grin, but always respectfully, always at Mycroft’s - Morrissey’s - pace. 

Mycroft was done with waiting.

He lifted his hips as Greg pushed his foreskin back and forth, pleasure radiating outward from the swoop of his pelvis. “That’s it,” Greg said into his ear, his voice hardly more than a throaty whisper. “Relax for me. I want you to feel good.”

“Oh, oh god,” Mycroft writhed as Greg’s hand pumped his cock. He felt a hand stroke through his hair, then grip it lightly at the roots. The contact sent lightning down his spine. He arched his back and tilted his hips.

“Tell me how you like to please yourself,” Greg said.

“Hold -  _ oh _ \- hold tighter. Just a little faster.”

Instead, Greg released his cock and slid his left hand over Mycroft’s balls. Greg’s right hand replaced his left on Mycroft’s cock and began stroking. Fingers cradled his balls, and then traveled further down, over his perineum, tracing the furl of his arse. While Mycroft had touched himself there many times during masturbation, no one else aside from his physician had ever done this - and it was nothing so pleasant as this. 

His eyes shut, Mycroft could see Greg step into the large bath with him, watch as Greg pulled his legs around his waist. He opened his eyes. No one was there, but the water rippled around him, lapped at the sides of the tub. Mycroft closed his eyes again, just as something hard nudged at his entrance. "May I?" A voice husked at his ear as a weight covered his body. Greg, slotted between his thighs, pressing their chests together, nuzzling at his neck with his nose while his cock nuzzle at Mycroft's arsehole. 

His cock jerked as he said, "Please, yes please."

Pressure, and then a slight pop past his sensitive rim. It slid into him, filled him, dragged over his prostate in the most delicious way. It shouldn't have been so comfortable - lying in an old porcelain tub, being penetrated like that, but Mycroft felt as it he were surrounded and cushioned. Held and cherished. Water sloshed at the sides of the tub as Mycroft was fucked, slow and gentle. 

Greg kissed him again and again, as if he couldn't get enough. Their tongues slid together. Mycroft felt lifted, exalted, even as Greg's thrusts sped up.

"Oh lord," he mumbled against his lover's lips. 

"Does it feel okay?" Greg asked.

"It's sensational." Mycroft tipped his head back as Greg covered his neck in kisses. The slide of Greg's cock inside him was like nothing he'd ever known, and a building pressure began inside him.

Greg's strong hand gripped his cock, tightly, and tugged, up and down, up and down. The combination of being filled, of pressure against his prostate, of a fist around his cock unleashed a rippling spasm across his muscles, a burst of pleasure that whited out his mind and tumbled all through him.

Greg didn’t release him until the last spurts of come dribbled out, and Mycroft shivered with sensitivity. He still felt as if he was wrapped up in his ghostly lover, protected from the cool hardness of the tub. The fullness started to leave him. 

“You’re gorgeous,” Greg whispered to him.

“Did you…?”

“I felt it. Yours. Ours. As if it were combined. Incredible.”

“Amazing,” Mycroft said as he sagged in the bath, on the edge of a happy delirium. “But now I need a shower.”

Husky laughter suffused the room. Mycroft's heart felt full.


	6. Laughter at the Garden Gate

Anthea approached the cottage with trepidation. The conversation she’d had earlier with Mycroft alarmed her. 

“Yes, Anthea, I...won’t be coming in this week,” he’d said.  _ It was Monday morning. _

“Sir?” She was flabbergasted.

“Please reschedule the meeting with the CIA, and the rest you can handle with the team,” he’d stated.

“Are - sir. Are you alright?”

“I’m...better than ever.”

And the thing is, he  _ sounded _ better. He sounded delighted, like taking off the week from work was the best idea he’d ever come up with. It was astonishing. 

And frightening.

In her bag of tricks, she had included a first aid kit, with nitrile gloves and a mask, just in case whatever Mycroft was suffering from was contagious. In her purse, she carried a gun, in case Mycroft was being kept here under duress. Two men waited in the car behind her. A second car with more agents waited down the lane. 

He hadn’t used the appropriate code, but his captor might be more clever than they’d planned for.

When she knocked on the door, Mycroft’s quick response surprised her.

“Sir, Mr Holmes, I’m here to have you sign some documents,” she said. She held out a clipboard with a paper on top that asked him to blink his eyes twice if he needed security. 

Mycroft only stared at her, wide-eyed. And to her shock, he began to laugh. He laughed so loud and so long that his shoulders shook, and he wiped tears from his eyes.

She leaned closer to him and whispered, “Have you been drugged, sir?”

“No, no, Anthea, good lord, no. I’m simply…” He wiped another tear from his eye. “I’m simply the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m not unwell at all. Quite the opposite. Won’t you come in for some tea?”

“Uh, yes. Thank you, sir.” She’d never seen Mycroft so at ease. His posture suggested a languid attitude, dressed in a relaxed sweater vest over a button down and chinos instead of his usual impeccable three-piece suit. Her eyes boggled.

The cottage was pretty much as she remembered it. Low ceilings with exposed beams, with a minimal amount of clutter and some beautiful updates. Mycroft invited her to sit on one of the overstuffed leather chairs in the lounge. She did, straightening her skirt and crossing her legs. 

“It is a lovely cottage, sir,” she said.

“It is, isn’t it? I’m most glad I didn’t sell it after all,” he said from the kitchen. 

She looked around - and found something new. 

Mycroft had taught her much about how to observe and how to file things to memory. The frame that caught her eye hadn’t been hanging there before. It was a sketch of a handsome man in what looked like an old-fashioned naval officer’s uniform. He appeared rugged, with a charm that seemed to radiate from the drawing.

Mycroft appeared with a tray of tea. “That’s new,” she said.

Mycroft glanced at the wall. “Oh yes. I...picked it up in town. Handsome chap, isn’t he?”

When he swung his gaze back toward her, she swore he looked over her shoulder instead of at her.

When their eyes met, she experienced a rabid urge to glance behind her. She resisted. Brought her tea to her lips. Set it on the saucer. “What is it, sir? If I may be so bold to ask. Why have you decided to take a few days off? I’ve never known you to take a vacation.”

Mycroft’s eyes slid around the room as he smiled from behind his tea cup. “I find that some of my priorities have changed. I will be telecommuting from here on some of my days. You’ll have to step up. You’ll be properly compensated of course.”

She jolted at that. “You’ll be telecommuting?”

“On some days I may need you here. I’m sure you won’t mind. We can take tea in the garden. I think you’ll find the air is very agreeable here.”

“Is it?” Anthea had worked for Mycroft for about six years. She was sure the person sitting before her wasn’t him. Except that the person moved like him, and spoke like him...and was what she imagined if Mycroft Holmes were happy.

So. Deliriously. Happy. 

_ Drugs? _

Anthea studied him as they talked. His skin glowed. Healthy. Colour in his cheeks, unlike the pallid hue they tended to from too many hours indoors. His eyes were bright, focused. Clear. The corners of his mouth turned up, and it wasn’t his usual, condescending smile, or his unamused one. This was a happy turn of the lips. Relaxed. Crinkles at the corners of his eyes. His manner was brisk, open, frank. Cordial. 

_ Warm. _

Something about the way his eyes glittered, the way they shifted about the room to pause on something she couldn’t see, told her he had a secret.

If it was a secret that had led to such happiness, she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t share it.

By the time he escorted her out the door and back to the car, she was dizzy. His happiness was contagious. His warmth buoyed her all the way back to London. 

In the end, she could do nothing but accept it.

* * *

When he compared him, Mycroft, with him, Morrissey, he could see few differences. Intelligent. Preferred color: green. A fondness for luxurious fabrics and fashionable suits. Gay. Introverted. An affinity for lemon cake with icing. Even if they had lived two different lives, the memories filed in, side by side, and he could parse what belonged to Morrissey and what belonged to Mycroft, and how he might reconcile the two.

Through it all, he was loved, 

“You seem to be getting better at that,” Greg said.

Mycroft smiled, and flipped the pancake in the pan. “Yes. If it were an Olympic sport, I should likely qualify.”

Greg’s strong arms wrapped around his waist and his chin rested on his shoulder. “I’m sure they taste wonderful, too.”

Mycroft hummed. “If only you could taste them for yourself.”

“As much as I miss food, I am content to watch you eat it.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Ah, she’s so punctual,” Mycroft said.

“I like her.”

“Mm, yes. Hiring her was my best decision.”

He opened the door to an Anthea with a tentative smile on her face. As she walked through the house, she seemed to be peeking around corners.

“Are you looking for something?”

“Oh, sorry, sir. I had thought I heard you speaking to someone.” Her cheeks coloured.

“Do you see anyone?” Mycroft said.

“Um, no, sir.”

He shrugged. Lifted his laptop onto his lap and gave her a cordial smile. “Let’s begin with the new delegation.”

Anthea bent her head over her phone.

* * *

“The Widow Fernsby is at the front door again. Another basket of goodies.”

“Mm.” Mycroft smiled at the amused tone of his lover. “Her jam is rather delicious.”

“How does it feel to be the most eligible bachelor in Morewind?”

Mycroft snorted. “Even if that were true, Mrs Fernsby would not be my first choice.”

Greg laughed. “I credit her for her persistence.”

The knock came.

“Coming,” Mycroft called. 

He opened the door to a slender woman carrying a basket of jars and herbs. “Mr Holmes,” she said cheerfully, her brown eyes alight. “I was passing by and thought I might offer you another jar of that jam you liked.”

“How very kind of you, Mrs Fernsby. I only just finished the other jar.” He showed her the empty and washed canning jar. They swapped. “How is your son’s new job?”

“Oh, he’s getting along quite well. He’s coming for dinner this upcoming weekend - oh! You really should join us. It must get quite lonely here all on your own.”

“I am rather enamoured of my solitude, Mrs Fernsby, as kind as your dinner invitation is. And I wouldn’t dream of interfering on a son’s quality time with his mother.”

“Oh, you, Nan said you’d say that,” she tittered. She was quite attractive. Round face, silver hair. Voluptuous figure. Decidedly not a dead sea captain, which apparently was Mycroft’s particular preference. “Will you be joining her husband and his friends for poker again? I heard you’re quite the card shark.”

“Oh, perhaps,” Mycroft smiled. He’d gone on a lark, after countless invitations from Nancy Chesweir’s husband and his brother. Locals, all. No doubt curious about the hermited Holmes living up on the bluffs. “If I’m ever invited again.” He’d put them all to shame.

“Nancy says she’ll make sure of it. You taught them a lesson, Mr Holmes, and I must say we girls delighted in it. Some of those old-timers need to be reminded that they’re not the only clever ones in Morewind.”

Mycroft chuckled. “Thank you, Mrs Fernsby. Now if you don’t mind, I have some reading I simply must get to. Please do enjoy your son’s visit. Thank you again for the jam. Feel free to cut some of the roses to take with you.”

She brightened. “That’s very kind of you, Mr Holmes, I shall.”

He closed the door. As he placed the jam in the cupboard, Greg spoke up. Mycroft always knew where he stood. He could never see him, but he could sense him, how far or near he was. Now Greg stood in the kitchen. “Well now I can’t decide if she’s after you or after the roses.”

“Prize-winning, either way.” 

Greg laughed and grabbed Mycroft by the waist. Kissed him soundly.

They held one another for a moment. Mycroft felt Greg’s fingers touch the hair at his temples. It’d gone white. 

“Greg, I’m thinking of retirement,” he announced.

He could feel Greg smile. “Are you?”

“Yes. More time spent here, with you. In sight of the garden and the sea. I think it would do me good. I’m not getting any younger, and this old injury of mine acts up now and again. The car ride into London is hell.”

A hand weighed on his hip, stroked him. “Are you getting a cane?”

Mycroft scoffed. “I don’t need to broadcast it, do I?”

A comforting stroke of his shoulders, and his face. “It’s not about what others think, though, right? It’s about your comfort.”

“Easy for you to say,” Mycroft said, though he knew he was pouting. 

A press of lips to his cheek. “All I wanted when we were young, was to grow old with you.”

“Well, I think I shall be doing enough of it for the both of us,” Mycroft said with a small smile.

Another kiss, this time on the lips. “Don’t fret, I’ll be here, no matter how old and wrinkled you get.”

Mycroft giggled, and held his beloved close.

* * *

“One of the things I can’t wait to show you is the rose garden,” Greg said.

They sat behind the cottage in chairs, hand in hand. Sometimes, Mycroft thought he could see Greg. A flicker of movement, the outline of a man. As if he were becoming corporeal.

Or perhaps, Mycroft could more easily see beyond the veil that hung between them. 

“The rose garden?” Mycroft asked.

“More colours than you dreamed of,” Greg said. 

“Mm,” Mycroft smiled as he squeezed Greg’s hand. Warm. Solid. “I think I should like that.”

* * *

“Really? He wanted his ashes scattered here?” John Watson said as he got out of the car. “It seems so unlike him.” Over the years, the lines on his face had deepened, his hair had whitened, and his pace had slowed. It had been decades since he’d last hit on her, though sometimes his eyes got a little sparkle and his smile became more of a smirk. She didn’t mind so much anymore, and had got past calling him “Doctor Watson.”

Sherlock was quiet. His hair had gone steel grey, and he leaned on a cane as he observed the cottage. In his other hand, he held a small box. 

“This was his most beloved hideaway,” Anthea said softly. She went to stand beside Sherlock, who knew Mycroft the best of all of them, despite the many years she had worked beside the man.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, his voice low and small. “He was always eager to be here.”

“You visited him, didn’t you?” she asked.

“I came for tea a few times. After he retired. Usually, we met up in London.” He drew his shoulders back as he inhaled. “This place suited him. He was quite changed after he inherited it. It changed him...for the better, I think.” 

John came up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You know, you’re right. I almost liked him.”

Sherlock smiled and lowered his head to John’s. “If it wasn’t for his encouragement, I should likely have never said anything to you.”

John kissed him on the cheek. “Then I am grateful to him.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a tissue. He dabbed Sherlock’s face with it. Anthea pretended not to see.

She opened the gate to the cottage. Sherlock and she both had keys to the building, but the inside of the cottage wasn’t their aim. 

They ambled along the rose garden, the buds only beginning to open like soft sunrises along the greenery. Making their way to the back of the cottage, Anthea was once again struck by the beauty of the cliffside view of the ocean. 

The sun dipped toward the water. 

“I am glad to know that he died peaceful in his sleep,” Sherlock murmured to her.

She had been Mycroft’s most frequent visitor, along with the few friends he’d made in town. They’d planned a brunch of blueberry scones, and instead, she’d walked into a house that was silent. 

When she found him in his bed, he was curled up. For just a second, she thought he was asleep and dreaming, for his face held a soft, beautiful smile. 

“I’m glad, too,” she said.

They reached the bluff. Anthea had never walked within six feet of the edge, preferring instead to linger at a safe distance. Sherlock, still fearless in his old age, strolled to the precipice, though John walked with him and held his arm with what seemed like a protective caution. 

She didn’t hear Sherlock’s words as the wind tossed them in the opposite direction of where she stood, but she could see John tighten his hold. When Sherlock opened the box, tears sprang to her eyes.

When she turned around and looked to the cottage and to the roses, she almost expected to see him there, doddering about. Sometimes he talked to someone that wasn’t there, or seemed to look at someone as if sharing a joke. His mind was otherwise sharp, and he proved capable of taking care of himself, so she never pressed him on it. Or told anyone about it. The villagers thought him an eccentric but kindly old man. The few friends he made spoke highly of him. It never bothered her much. But she hoped, wherever he was now, that he was happy, as happy as she’d seen him here, in this old seaside cottage that had seemingly transformed him.

* * *

Mycroft was young again.

Or, at least, his body didn’t hold onto the old aches and pains he’d come to accept as part of his golden years. When he ran his fingers through his hair, he found the thick curls of his youth, and no receding hairline. He laughed, his mouth full of sunlight and his limbs full of vigour as he ran down to the beach.

Greg stood at the edge of the water, his hair shining in the light, his grin as white as the sea foam behind him. Mycroft slammed into him, wrapping his arms and legs about him in as carefree a jubilation as he’d ever felt in his life. 

Greg’s strong warm embrace around him was nothing new. But to see his eyes, to taste his skin, to gaze upon his grin - Mycroft couldn’t be happier. Tears tracked down his cheeks as Greg laughed, squeezed him, kissed him. 

“At last, at last,” Greg said. 

“At last, I can fully see you,” Mycroft said.

Greg laughed and kissed him again. “Look,” he said. “Look up there.”

Mycroft turned as Greg set him down on the sand.

Three figures stood on the top of the bluff, one only half-seen from their vantage point below. 

“My brother,” Mycroft said. “And John. And Anthea. Can they see us?”

“I don’t think so, love.”

“I can feel their sadness from here,” Mycroft said. He looked about. “Everything is so much clearer. More colourful. I’ve...I didn’t know there were so many colours.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Greg brushed his nose along his cheek. 

“Yes.” He looked again to the cliff. “I wish they could be happy for me.”

Greg wrapped his arms around him. “In time, they will know what it means to die. Meanwhile, let’s hope they know what it means to live.”

Mycroft turned in his arms. “I think they shall. It wasn’t always easy, but over time, I believe we taught each other, reminded one another, to make the effort to live our best lives. Even as our best changes from time to time.”

When the three figures from the cliff were gone, Mycroft pulled away, but secured Greg’s hand with his own. “Now, will you show me everything? I wish to see it all. With you.”

“And so you shall,” Greg said. “Starting with the rose garden.”

As the sun set, the two figures walked, hand in hand, silhouetted by the light. In the years to come, the villagers added a new story to their compendium of tales: a light seen in the old Holmes cottage. Men’s voices in the garden. Lovers walking along the rocky shore below the bluffs. 

And laughter, happy laughter tumbling through the air at night, if you walk by the garden gate. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. <3
> 
> Thank you again to hippocrates460, who beta read this work.


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